Let’s be straight up: Final Gasp’s debut Mourning Moon (Relapsev Records) is a great album, but going into this we need to be clear in what we expect from it. The album cover, and marketing hype around this album makes you think it’s the second coming of Type O Negative. This is not the case. They draw inspiration from one of my favorite eras of punk rock…the mid eighties. This is when bands like T.S.O.L. and Die Kruzen took a darker turn in a more shadowy direction.
This is really sold by the excellent production of the modern legend Arthur Rizk who uses an ample coat of reverb to set the stage. The “wet” feel of the vocals blends sumptuously into the aggression of the guitars.
Vocalist Jake Murphy helps the band carve their own sound. He is aggressive but places his cathartic bellow in all the right places. I try to avoid reading other reviews of albums I am writing about, but heard there were several reviews comparing him to Danzig. This tells me a couple of things. One of them being that people are stupid, the other being they obviously have not heard Killing Joke. Jaz Coleman’s style would be more comparable if you combined it with the croon Harley Flanagan adapted when he took over on vocals for the Cro-mags’ Best Wishes album. Here you have me comparing these guys to two of my favorite bands, this should tell you I am impressed by this album.
Occasionally the vocals shift into a lower growled whisper, but unlike the score of a horror movie it is not an omen of creepier, more metallic songs lying ahead. That is fine with me as I think it’s great that a band is cracking into the lost mines of punk rock past, to forage something new. The title track is one of the album’s catchier songs, and these guys have a passion for what they do that keeps every track feeling crucial. Sometimes they are more brooding, varying in levels of sonic heaviness with “Frozen Glare” being perhaps the most impressive in this regard. “Blood and Sulphur” kicks things further in the hardcore punk direction, as they embark upon a street-wise sermon.
The aggressive nature of this album gradually increases until things reach an almost full-on thrash explosion with “Unnatural Law”. The band does have some metal influence that simmer under the more deliberate attack that dominates this album, such as on “14 Gates”. The guitars capture a cold stark haunting mood on this one.
Final Gasp has to be commended for how they have captured the sound from this era. As musicians, they excel at layering the atmosphere against harder punchy sections. Their singer might not sound like Danzig, but the guitar takes on a feel similar to what John Christ was doing on the first two Danzig albums, even if there are three six-stringers. They dig deeper into the graves of dark eighties punk with “The Vanishing”, before closing out the album by pushing it into the fringe corners this era with “Rows of Heaven”. This album has earned a great number of repeat listens, as it takes me back to my teen years when this brand of punk held a sacred place in my blackened heart.
Buy the album here:
https://linktr.ee/relapserecords
9 / 10
WIL CIFER